Everyone knows that the process surrounding the purchase of a car is one that requires equal parts organization, research, and peace of mind before fully committing yourself to what amounts to the second-largest purchase the average person will ever make. It’s a moment that carries its fair share of emotional and financial weight, which is why Carvana has dedicated itself to streamlining the car buying process as much as possible to those in the automotive marketplace.

But what about the individuals who are simply looking to sell their vehicle without the muss and fuss that typically accompanies such an action?

For individuals looking to sell their vehicle privately, the reward can be earning more on their vehicle’s suggested retail price. However, the time and energy required to sell your vehicle at the price point you desire could take a few weeks and may not be worth the effort for some.

If you instead visit a dealership looking to sell your vehicle, you may find yourself offloading it quickly enough but it’s more likely you’ll also find yourself engaged with a dealership associate, haggling over what each of you perceive to be the vehicle’s true value.

Both options offer up their own unique tinge of headache. But what if there was another way?

At Carvana, in addition to providing car buying customers with an online solution to purchasing and trading in their vehicles, we also allow customers to sell their vehicles outright without the stress, anxiety, and time spent that comes with attempts to sell privately or to a dealership. To help explain this Carvana offering, we spoke with Danny and Michelle, two members of our Trades and Buy From Public team.

SIMPLIFYING THE SALE

Simplicity and convenience is the name of the game at Carvana, so it’s no surprise to find these qualities underscoring the “Sell To Carvana” proposition. Similar to the ease and transparency of buying a vehicle online with Carvana, the process of selling your vehicle online with Carvana can take place in as little as 15 minutes. By visiting carvana.com/trades, a person can easily input their vehicle’s information before receiving a unique and accurate value in seconds. According to Danny, Carvana utilizes a wide range of data to generate an authoritative value for your vehicle.

“We look at the Kelley Blue Book trade-in data for similar vehicles in your local market, since, for example, a convertible in New Jersey is not going to sell well in the heart of winter,” says Danny. “In addition to that, we look into vehicle history reports and see what CarFax and Autocheck report when it comes to what your vehicle has been through.”

Once you receive your value and decide to sell your vehicle to Carvana outright, you would then upload a few documents from Carvana depending on how your vehicle is currently paid for. From there, individuals from Carvana’s Trades and Buy From Public team – like Danny and Michelle – will review the documents and then make contact with the customer.

“Our goal is to be one and done with customer,” says Danny. “Meaning we try and limit our contact with them so as not to bog down the process for a customer selling their vehicle. Of course, customers can give us a call anytime if they have questions, but we try to limit the amount of contact we initiate from our end.”

After your documents are uploaded to Carvana, the customer is kept up-to-date via email, prepping them for the steps leading up to the moment a Carvana Field Advocate arrives in a hauler ready to take their old car away.

“Once we pick up the vehicle, our Advocate shows up in a Carvana hauler and will run through a checklist,” says Danny. “After the checklist is complete, the Advocate will hand the customer a check for their vehicle’s valuation which they can deposit in their personal bank account immediately.

“What makes this offering great is, just like the process of buying a car from Carvana, the process of selling your vehicle to Carvana can be done from the comfort of home. There are no strained conversations with dealership personnel, and we take care of everything from start to finish in terms of paperwork and coming to retrieve the customer’s vehicle.”

“ARE YOU FOR REAL?!”

There’s an all too familiar saying that states if something is too good to be true, then it probably is. However, as it pertains to the Sell To Carvana offering, the process really is as direct and painless as it sounds.

“A lot of times customers will ask if they have to send pictures of their vehicles to us for verification purposes, or if they have to come to a Carvana location in order to get the valuation done,” says Michelle. “The fact the process of selling a vehicle to us can be completed 100 percent online is a huge benefit for customers looking to save time and get a fair value for their vehicle.

“It’s funny because we get the ‘Are you for real?!’ question a lot.”

To help overcome some of the trepidation and “too good to be true” feedback the Trades and Buy From Public receives from time to time, Danny and Michelle say that they share with customers Carvana’s A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, and the fact that Carvana is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Usually once we explain the process from start to finish, we only get a handful of people who want to conduct some additional research before proceeding with us,” says Michelle.

For the team, the goal at the end of the day is to simply communicate that there is a valuable and trusted solution for customers who are simply looking to sell their cars free of hassle.

“We encourage customers to go and sell their vehicles on their own if they feel so inclined,” says Danny, “but it’s also important for us make them aware of the potential headaches that are involved with it in terms of time spent trying to offload the vehicle themselves. Our offered value to a customer is good for seven days, so if they go and try to sell their vehicle without success, they can always come back to us within seven days and complete a sale with us if they so choose.

“We’re just here to help make the process as seamless as possible for the customer.”

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Say hello to Carvana - a whole new way to buy a Car

At Carvana, our goal is to put you in total control of the purchase process. What does this mean? We’re open 24 hours a day so you can buy whenever you want. You are able to use your computer or your phone so you can buy however you want. You also can buy wherever you want, like the comfort of your couch and not a dealership.